Mythic Truths (aka “When Gypsy’s Not Thinking”)

This was written on March 19th, 1998, when I lived in Portland, Oregon and went to college full time. I just came across it in a box and decided to share the incident here. I have to admit it’s kindof a good description of me and how I think:

———————————————————————————————–

So. . . to celebrate my newly found freedom of Spring Break..I decided to do some laundry.
Now, though upon moving in I was assured of a washer and dryer …after moving in discovered the actual truth was that there was a dryer that he (Landlord/roommate) thought worked, but the washer absolutely did Not. So, before today, I’ve been lugging my laundry the mile walk to the laundromat. Today, though …today is a nice day, beautiful outside, I’m in a good mood ..feeling inspired. Myself, having fervently refused to learn any domestic skills while still at home …am nonetheless feeling adventurous and decided to wash my clothes by hand.
The first thing I realized was that I had no idea whatsoever how this was done. Undaunted, I filled the tub with some water, and piled some clothes up next to me. Having no soap (poor), and no kind of washboard (they did used something like that, didn’t they?), I decided I would just sortof toss some jeans in the tub and …well… slosh them around a bit. So I did this for a few minutes, and ..what the heck, the rest of the bathroom probably needed that good rinsing anyway. When my arms were tired I decided that the jeans must be clean now, because the rest of the bathroom and I were. So I attempted to “ring them out”. My hands are not very big. I am not very tall. I discovered I could only hold a small portion of the wet, now heavy, jeans in my hands at one time. So I worked through them bit by bit. After a brief moment of this, I discovered that the part of the jeans I was not holding and squeezing at the moment had, in fact, swung back down into the water. So after sort-of ringing them out again, I tossed them onto a towel …so as not to wet the floor (which was already drenched) and a did few more pairs.
I then picked up the towel full of clothes, walked it through the living room (drip drip drip), the kitchen (drip drip drip), into the laundry room and tossed ’em in the dryer. To my delighted surprize, the dryer actually did work. Sort of. It took 130 minutes to dry the jeans (most likely due to my inability to thoroughly pre-ring them). So I walked the jeans back across the kitchen, living room and into my room ..put them away and sloshed around some more clothes. Walked those back through all the rooms, got the dryer going with them …walked back through the kitchen and sat down on the couch to watch a good flick. Some time later, I walked back across the kitchen to get a drink. I happened to glance down.
It was then I discovered that a leprechaun had visited. There were distinct green footprints all over the floor. It is March. Two days late for St. Patrick’s Day, but I thought …it’s a long way from Ireland. I stepped back into the living room to contemplate. This is when I realized that the leprechaun was obviously following me. There were steps where I had just stepped. I turned around Quick! to catch the culprit, and round again, but alas ..it must be fast. It had stepped where I stepped. I had stepped where I stepped. I had… I had . . .I lifted up my foot. . . .

The dryer really heats things up. Alot. The laundry room is painted bright green. All of it. Even the floor. Apparently, this particular brand of paint melts rather easily.
After I recovered …(from a gut-bust laugh), I realized that Tom, my roommate and landlord …being a very neurotic fella and in a bad swing anyway …Tom would not find this nearly as entertaining as I did. Shit . S’lotta GREEN. Luckily, it did not take to the carpet. But the kitchen. . .
After scrubbing down my feet, I grabbed a pan-scratchy, got down on my hands & knees (we’ve no mop), and started to de-leprechaunize the floor. However, I did this in a way so that all the green patches were behind me. When I went to stand up to rinse the scratchy, I stuck. I had succeeded in moving some of the paint from the floor, to my lower legs. “Well then, that’s something, isn’t it?” I thought. So I dug out more scratchies and strapped them (tape) to my legs. Then I got back down and just sortof pulled myself, all parts scrubbing, across the floor. Both of my cats were, at this time, out of the bedroom and lined up side-by-side on the edge of the kitchen, looking at me with extreme concern. Seeing that made me break out into hysterical laughter again, as I realized how ridiculous I must look. This only made it worse and Toby actually started crying (“meeooooow…”) …my poor cats thought I had completely lost my mind.
Of course, after I had gotten the leprechaun evidence up (in much less time with 4 limbs, than 2!) and removed the strapped-on scratchies (`RIP – ouch!!’) …I realized that the second load of clothes were still in the dryer. In the green room. I nearly just decided to count them at a loss and leave ’em. But…
There is some distance between the bottom step out of the kitchen and the drying machine in the little laundry room. Just enough that I could brace myself against the step, and sortof fall forward …catching myself on the dryer, leaning without touching the floor … brace myself with one hand, open the dryer with the other and start tossing my dry clothes across to the kitchen floor (which was wet). Then I had to kindof push-off with my upper arms to regain my balance on the step. Not touching the Green! Triumph!! Except for the now dampened-again clothes. . . sigh.
Tomorrow I am walking my happy ass the mile to the ‘mat. My my a little red wagon would be useful. . .